


Contagions During Sparring

by Prostranstvo



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: F/M, Xenoverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:06:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3879832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prostranstvo/pseuds/Prostranstvo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the defeat of Demigra, Trunks thinks he has everything figured out, until a training session exploits his weakness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contagions During Sparring

It had been three weeks after the defeat of Demigra and a week into their formal training together, when she had discovered the Saiyan's weakness. It was something Trunks himself had never been fully aware of until his Time Patrol Co-Captain started dodging nearly every left hook he would swing, and would return said left hooks with a right jab of her own to his ribs. For two training sessions she would dodge and execute a counterattack with perfect accuracy, and for two training sessions Trunks would head back to base camp in Toki-Toki City and sit perplexed while his bruised ribs were crudely covered with a bag of ice. 

“How do you keep doing that,” he asked her during next day's session in between a volley of swift kicks and high blocks coming from both sides. She stopped suddenly with her foot less than an inch away from his wrist, and looked at him as though he had grown a second head.

“Do what,” she asked and she moved her leg back into resting position with one graceful slow arc of a moment that extended from her hips. A blue sash was neatly knotted around the waist of her training gi, and it ever so slightly accentuated the shape of her pelvis, something that Trunks had noticed, but never actually said anything about. It was a training uniform after all, there shouldn't be anything attractive or accentuating about it, right? Did he mean to think attractive? 

He cleared his throat.

“Doing that thing where you don't get hit.” 

She laughed and the sound of it was infectious, like the sound birds make at dawn or a brook that just melted after a long winter. Laughter was something Trunks rarely grew up hearing, and it was a sound he still wasn't completely used to hearing to be perfectly honest. However with things finally calm between dimensions, it was a sound he was at least starting to hear more often. How long did it take him to become accustomed to peace after the Androids were stopped? There were still times after he killed those mechanical demons with his own hands the he would clench his teeth at the sound of a siren. Not that his fellow Time Patroller's laugh sounded anything like a siren, mind you, though The Supreme Kai of Time would argue that they were both as equally high pitched and shrill. No, the only time his teeth were clenched around her was when he had his guard up, which was becoming all the more frequent during their training together. She really was something, which was a thought he usually only reserved for people such as his Father or Goku.

“It's your left side, you favor it when you fight.” 

She said it with such confidence that Trunks was all but convinced she was right, though he never noticed said favoring of any side of his before now. In retrospect it would make sense that he would try to attack from there, now that he thought about it. When he trained with Gohan as a child, he always remembered trying to attack Gohan from the left considering Gohan's left side was weaker due to... it was raining, and he was lying face down in the mud and in the rubble of what was left of the city like a farmer who left a lame racing horse out to pasture after it developed a limp. Only it wasn't just his leg that was damaged, it was his everything. Broken, mangled, bleeding...why did Gohan knock him out? If only he went with him, if only... He felt the energy rising inside him, his need for revenge moved up his spine like an electric current. It tingled from his toes to the tips of his fingers to the top of his head. This energy, this anger, this sadness made its way through his body into the very fibers of his hair, and he felt his lavender tresses slowly rise and begin to deify gravity as much as the rest of him.

“Trunks?” 

As quickly as the sensation came , her voice made it go away. The way she spoke, the concern in her voice, it melted his anger like spring melts a brook after a long winter. She tucked a loose hair behind her ear and looked to the ground, as though she were embarrassed about something. What did she have to be embarrassed about? He was the one who almost went blonde. 

“I didn't mean to bring up your weakness. I'm sorry. It's just...I've been watching you closely when you fight. Even when you don't fight with me, I still like watching you. Fight I mean. N-n-not like that, I mean I watch a lot of my sparring partners, not that I have other sparring partners...”

Was her face actually slightly red, or was it a trick of the light? Her eyes met his and for a brief moment they stared at each other, neither sure what was supposed to be said. Usually in their line of work they let fists do all the talking. 

“I'm sorry.” She eventually broke the silence and apologized with a light punch to his left arm, which was a nice change from the usual blows he received during their sessions together. Who knew somebody so powerful could be so gentle? He saw it in Goku, and he saw it in Gohan, but he didn't know there were others out there like them. Others out there like him as well.

Wait, what did she mean she liked watching him?

“Let's go back to base, and convince the Kai to order dinner for us. As good as your cooking is, I think we can both use a break from it.” 

There was that laugh again. The strident and infectious twitter in her throat that had somehow left her lungs and jumped into his, and he found himself unexpectedly joining in on the joke with a airy utterance of his own. It truly was contagious, and the sounds of their shared mirth settled in the shadows of the oncoming twilight. It was the sound that made the regret go away. The sound that left his teeth at ease. The sound that let him knew there was hope, that the future was going to be alright, and the comfort in knowing that somebody out there actually liked him for something more than just his cooking and his fists.

The sound of a past he never had, and a future he wanted for everyone.


End file.
